She is Princess Lia. Seventeen. First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.

The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can't abide. Like having to marry someone she's never met to secure a political alliance. Fed up and ready for a new life, Lia flees to a distant village on the morning of her wedding. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive-and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deceptions swirl and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets-secrets that may unravel her world-even as she feels herself falling in love.

ASSASSINS, AND PRINCES, AND KISSES OH MY!!

The Kiss of Deception was a fun read that got me out of my All Souls Trilogy reading slump.

We had a runaway princess bride.

The Assassin sent to kill her...

And a jilted Prince.

I found the writing style to be very unique. We had three separate narrators, that switched up every chapter or so. The main being Lia, the bride to be who it seems would rather rip off her own fingernails than get married to a stranger. And who can blame her really? It's not a major goal in my life to be forcibly hitched to a mystery prince (okay maybe it's a small one) and Lia sure as hell didn't want it either. It was rather refreshing to see a female lead character take charge of her own life instead of letting the people who surround her do the dictating for her. Of course with her being a princess, her flee to freedom does come with consequences. As with most royal weddings, Lia's was a merger of sorts. A cementation of an alliance between two opposing countries. That is the background of this story. We have a young, headstrong girl trying to figure out her way and grabbing the reigns of her life with both hands, but it comes with a price. Book one is the setup for this future conflict.

I love how the author toyed with the reader a bit by not revealing who the Prince and the Assassin were until towards the end of the book. It was a clever way to keep the audience on its toes and slightly off kilter. I found myself flipping back into the pages I had read scouring for clues as to their identities.

Final verdict? I really enjoyed The Kiss of Deception. It made me laugh, cry, and scream at the characters. An excellent sign that I will fangirl intensely over the coming installments of this series.

This Goth Girl Gives It

-We all have our different skills. You're patient to a fault, which sometimes doesn't work to your advantage. I, on the other hand, have the patience of a wet cat. Only on rare occasions does that come in handy.

-His eyes narrowed as if contemplating the gravity of the unforgivable. That was what I both hated and loved about Rafe. He challenged me on everything I said, but he also listened intently. He listened as if every word I said mattered.

-The temples, the wondrous bridges, the greatness may not last, but some things do. Nights like this. They go on and on, outlasting the moon, because they're made of something else, something as quiet as a heartbeat and as sweeping as the wind. For me, tonight would last forever.

-The truths of the world wish to be known, but they won't force themselves upon you the way lies will.

-All ways belong to the world. What is magic but what we don't yet understand?

-Sometimes we're all pushed to do things we thought we could never do.